1.
Royal Academy of Arts
–
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. The Royal Academy of Arts was founded through an act of King George III on 10 December 1768 with a mission to promote the arts of design in Britain through education and exhibition. Supporters wanted to foster a national school of art and to encourage appreciation, fashionable taste in 18th-century Britain was based on continental and traditional art forms, providing contemporary British artists little opportunity to sell their works. From 1746 the Foundling Hospital, through the efforts of William Hogarth, the success of this venture led to the formation of the Society of Artists of Great Britain and the Free Society of Artists. Both these groups were primarily exhibiting societies, their success was marred by internal factions among the artists. The combined vision of education and exhibition to establish a school of art set the Royal Academy apart from the other exhibiting societies. It provided the foundation upon which the Royal Academy came to dominate the art scene of the 18th and 19th centuries, supplanting the earlier art societies. Sir William Chambers, a prominent architect, used his connections with George III to gain royal patronage and financial support of the Academy, the painter Joshua Reynolds was made its first president. Francis Milner Newton was elected the first secretary, a post he held for two decades until his resignation in 1788, the instrument of foundation, signed by George III on 10 December 1768, named 34 founder members and allowed for a total membership of 40. William Hoare and Johann Zoffany were added to this list later by the King and are known as nominated members, among the founder members were two women, a father and daughter, and two sets of brothers. The Royal Academy was initially housed in cramped quarters in Pall Mall, although in 1771 it was given temporary accommodation for its library and schools in Old Somerset House, then a royal palace. In 1780 it was installed in purpose-built apartments in the first completed wing of New Somerset House, located in the Strand and designed by Chambers, the Academy moved in 1837 to Trafalgar Square, where it occupied the east wing of the recently completed National Gallery. These premises soon proved too small to house both institutions, in 1868,100 years after the Academys foundation, it moved to Burlington House, Piccadilly, where it remains. Burlington House is owned by the British Government, and used rent-free by the Royal Academy, the first Royal Academy exhibition of contemporary art, open to all artists, opened on 25 April 1769 and ran until 27 May 1769. 136 works of art were shown and this exhibition, now known as the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, has been staged annually without interruption to the present day. In 1870 the Academy expanded its programme to include a temporary annual loan exhibition of Old Masters. The range and frequency of these exhibitions have grown enormously since that time. Britains first public lectures on art were staged by the Royal Academy, led by Reynolds, the first president, a program included lectures by Dr. William Hunter, John Flaxman, James Barry, Sir John Soane, and J. M. W. Turner

2.
6 Burlington Gardens
–
6 Burlington Gardens is a Grade II*-listed building in Mayfair, London. The Italianate building was designed by Sir James Pennethorne between 1867 and 1870 as headquarters for the University of London and it occupied the northernmost section of the former garden of Burlington House. It was a building, but not especially large. The university vacated Burlington Gardens in 1900 for the Imperial Institute building in South Kensington, briefly the headquarters of the National Antarctic Expedition, in 1902 it was given to the Civil Service Commission. Between 1970 and 1997, the building, as the Museum of Mankind, hosted around 75 exhibitions, including famous ones such as Nomad and City,1976. It was created by Keeper of Ethnography Adrian Digby in the 1960s, Fagg was succeeded by Malcolm Mcleod in 1974, and by John Mack in 1990. The museum ceased exhibiting at Burlington Gardens in 1997 and the Department of Ethnography moved back to the British Museum in Bloomsbury in 2004, after the ethnography collection’s return to Bloomsbury the building was purchased by the Royal Academy. In 1998 an architectural competition was held to connect it with Burlington House and this was abandoned as the Heritage Lottery Fund was not persuaded that there was sufficient need for the project, which would have cost £80 million. In about 2005 the building was back into use by the Royal Academy, the tenant of the original wing of Burlington House. It was used mainly by the Royal Academy Schools, on 29 August 2006, the building was damaged by a fire, but there was no loss of Academy artworks as it was being prepared for a future exhibition. In 2006 Colin St John Wilson drew up a masterplan for the whole complex, however, Wilson died the following year, which led to another competition being held in 2008, won by David Chipperfield Architects. In 2012 space in the building was lent to the Pace Gallery, a second application to the HLF for £12. 7m to go towards a £36 million project, was successful in 2013. It is hoped that redevelopment will be complete in time for the Academy’s 250th anniversary in 2018

3.
Burlington House
–
Burlington House is a building on Piccadilly in London. It was originally a private Palladian mansion, and was expanded in the century after being purchased by the British government. The house was one of the earliest of a number of large private residences built on the north side of Piccadilly, previously a country lane. The first version was begun by Sir John Denham about 1664 and it was a red-brick double-pile hip-roofed mansion with a recessed centre, typical of the style of the time, or perhaps even a little old fashioned. In 1704 the house passed to the ten-year-old Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington, who was to become the patron of the Palladian movement in England. The colonnade separated the house from increasingly urbanized Piccadilly with a cour dhonneur, inside, Baroque decorative paintings in the entrance hall and staircase by Sebastiano Ricci and Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini resulted in some of the richest interiors in London. In between his two Grand Tours of Italy young Lord Burlingtons taste was transformed by the publication of Giacomo Leonis Palladio. In 1717 or 1718, Colen Campbell was appointed to replace Gibbs, the ground floor became a rusticated basement, which supported a monumental piano nobile of nine bays. This had no centrepiece, but was highlighted by venetian windows in the end bays. Other alterations included a monumental screening gateway to Piccadilly and the reconstruction of most of the principal interiors, with typical Palladian features such as rich coved ceilings. The Saloon, constructed immediately after William Kents return from Rome in December 1719, has survived in the most intact condition and its plaster putti above the pedimented doorcases were probably by Giovanni Battista Guelfi. Lord Burlington transferred his energies to Chiswick House after 1722. On Burlingtons death in 1753, Burlington House passed to the Dukes of Devonshire, the 4th Dukes younger son Lord George Cavendish and a Devonshire in-law, the 3rd Duke of Portland, each used the house for at least two separate spells. Portland had some of the interiors altered by John Carr in the 1770s. Eventually Lord George, who was a man in his own right due to a marriage to an heiress. Like Carrs work Wares was sympathetic with the Palladian style of the house, providing an example of the Kent Revival. In 1819 the Burlington Arcade was built along the part of the grounds. In 1854, Burlington House was sold to the British government for £140,000 and this plan, however, was abandoned in the face of strong opposition and in 1857 Burlington House was occupied by the Royal Society, the Linnean Society and the Chemical Society

4.
William Henry Mote
–
William Henry Mote was an English stipple and line engraver, primarily known for his portraits. He produced etchings for books, as well as original etchings. Mote became a member of the Royal Academy in his twenties and his portraits hang in the National Portrait Gallery, Mote was first mentioned in publications as working under the supervision of Charles Heath when he was sixteen or seventeen years old. He became a member of the Royal Academy when he was twenty eight years old. He also was one of many engravers to sign a petition addressed to the King and his sons are listed as engravers in contemporary census records and the London Directories. It is unknown exactly how much Motes sons worked under their fathers name and he was commissioned by King George IV to produce an engraving for the Greenwich Hospital, which was presented a year after King Georges death. Mote often etched portraits of royalty, Mote also worked with female artists, and a high percentage of his etchings found their way into publications produced by women. The National Portrait Gallery contains sixty five portrait engravings from Mote, Motes portrait of Sir Rowland Hill, which is now in the National Portrait Gallery, was published in 1820, when Mote would have been seventeen years old. Additionally, there are fifteen engravings in the Farnsworth Shakespeare Collection and he maintained a working relationship with the Heaths throughout his career and his engravings were often printed in their publications. New technology introduced in 1820 allowed more books to be produced, publication of annuals with etchings of beautiful women was a fad that lasted from 1823 to 1857, and Mote was a prolific engraver of this content. In the 1830s the etchings became popular as watercolor projects, although mainly a portrait engraver, Mote also produced religious and art etchings. At least 101 portrait etchings by William Mote now reside in various museums, the heyday of steel engraved book illustration was between 1825–1845, and a rapid expansion of this field took place in London around 1820. This coincided with Motes first known etching and he was an innovator with steel plate engravings not only because of his talent for etching, but because he was in the right place, at the right time, and worked for the right man. Etchers expressed fears of being replaced by photography in the 1865 minutes of the Royal Academy, by 1880 steel engravings were in serious decline and steel etching was being replaced with newer technology. Despite this decline, steel etchings were used as late as the 1920s in some mass-produced books, steel etching is currently used for currency. Some etchings attributed to Mote are labeled WT Mote and this is likely a mistake and these etchings were probably done by WH Mote. These etchings were published in Lodges Illustrious Portraits, there was an advertisement in Bents Literary Advertiser advertising these plates for sale by auction, and they were purchased for £4,200 by W. Smith at the 22 November auction. These mistakes may have come from a typesetting error under the plate, the book itself had set borders and the border of the etching may have been done by someone other than Mote

5.
Royal Academy Summer Exhibition
–
The Summer Exhibition is an open art exhibition held annually by the Royal Academy in Burlington House, Piccadilly in central London, England, during the summer months of June, July, and August. The exhibition includes paintings, prints, drawings, sculpture, architectural designs and models, when the Royal Academy was founded in 1768 one of its key objectives was to establish an annual exhibition, open to all artists of merit, which could be visited by the public. The first Summer Exhibition took place in 1769, it has held every year since without exception. Today, around 1,000 works are selected each year from as many as 10,000 entries representing some 5,000 artists, any artist may submit up to two works at a fee of £25 per piece for selection by The Summer Exhibition Selection and Hanging Committee. Due to the significant increase in the volume of entries over recent years, the number of entries per artist was reduced to 2, the committee is formed from the Council of Academicians and is traditionally chaired by the President of the Royal Academy. In addition to those selected by the committee, all 80 Academicians are entitled to have six of their own pieces in the exhibition. The 2005 exhibition theme was Printmaking and the multiple, in 2006, the theme was From Life. In 2008, the theme was Man Made, the theme for 2010 was Raw. In 2011, the committee agreed to have no specific theme. For the 2006 exhibition, the received a statue and a plinth from David Hensel. By mistake, the two parts were judged independently, with the result that the statue was rejected and the put on display. The RA Summer Exhibition usually opens to the public in early June, the main event is called Varnishing Day, the day that, according to popular legend, artists would come to add a final coat of varnish to their paintings. Traditionally, artists walk in procession from Burlington House to St Jamess Church, Piccadilly, at the opening reception the shortlists for various prizes are announced. Over £70,000 prize money, including the £25,000 Charles Wollaston Award, is awarded each year at the Summer Exhibition, in addition, a £10.000 architectural prize is awarded. Almost all exhibited works are for sale, the Academy receives 30% of the purchase price, in 2003, this amounted to a sum of some £2,000,000 for the institution, which receives no financial support from the state or crown. The Royal Academy revisited, Victorian paintings from the Forbes magazine Collection, new York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

6.
Taddei Tondo
–
The Taddei Tondo or The Virgin and Child with the Infant St John is a marble relief tondo by Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo Buonarroti. Part of the permanent collection of the Royal Academy of Arts in London, a perfect demonstration of his carving technique, the work delivers a powerful emotional and narrative punch. The tondo dates to Michelangelos time in Florence before his move to Rome in 1505, which works were considered outstanding and marvellous. A chisel blow on the reverse seemingly from this phase resulted in a hairline crack in the face of the Virgin that may only have become apparent as carving progressed. The missing segment to the right may be a result of an excess of his celebrated direct attack. In 1568 the tondo was still in the Palazzo Taddei, at an unknown date the tondo was taken to Rome, where it was acquired from Jean-Baptiste Wicar by Sir George Beaumont in 1822. It has been housed and displayed in various locations there ever since, except for an exhibition at the Victoria, the discovery of the hairline crack running through the upper half of the marble contributed to the decision in 1989 to provide a permanent home for the tondo. The tondo was left unwaxed and no other coating applied, as the work is not finished and was not originally polished, the tondo as a format for painting and relief sculpture was a quintessential product of the Florentine Renaissance. Compositionally, the eye of the viewer is drawn diagonally along Christs body, back up that of his mother, with her gaze across to John, and from his face back to Christ. John, patron saint of Florence, with his attribute of a bowl, crosses his arms. Executed with only a point and claw chisel, often hard and with great energy. The Christ child in full relief is highly finished, the relief of the Virgin finished to a lesser degree, St. John more so again. These marked variations in texture help establish the status of the three figures while creating a sense of compositional depth all the greater for not being more conventionally finished. Many of Michelangelos works are unfinished, according to nineteenth-century French sculptor and critic Eugène Guillaume, Michelangelos non finito was one of the masters expressive devices in his quest for infinite suggestiveness. Raphael returned to the body of the Christ child stretching across his mothers lap in the Bridgewater Madonna. It is indeed a great addition to our stock of art, cockerell noted in his diary how the subject seems growing from the marble & emerging into life. It assumes by degrees its shape, features from an unformed mass, with its differing degrees of finish the tondo is an outstanding technical study piece, plaster casts may be found at the Victoria and Albert Museum and Fitzwilliam Museum. Pitti Tondo Doni Tondo Taddei Tondo

7.
Robert Braithwaite Martineau
–
Robert Braithwaite Martineau was an English painter. Martineau was the son of Elizabeth Batty and Philip Martineau, a Master in Chancery, through his mother, he was the grandson of Robert Batty, M. D. physician and amateur painter. Martineau attended Colfes school for a few years at the age of 15 and he first trained as a lawyer and later entered the Royal Academy where he was awarded a silver medal. He studied under Pre-Raphaelite artist William Holman Hunt and once shared a studio with him and he died at the age of 43. In 1865, he married Maria Wheeler and had two children with her and his most famous painting, The Last Day in the Old Home portrays shows the feckless squire after gambling away his familys inheritance. The man portrayed is Colonel John Leslie Toke who was a friend of Martineau and was painted at his home, Godinton House in Ashford. In an odd way life came to art, for J L Toke inherited the house in 1866. The painting can be seen at the Tate Gallery in London, other paintings were bequeathed to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and Liverpool Art Gallery by his daughter Helen. Other less well known paintings include Kits First Writing Lesson and Picciola, Martineau was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery. The Spelling Lesson, Paris, Musée dOrsay, circa 1856, christoph Newall, La Leçon dorthographe, La Revue du Musée dOrsay, n°21 autommne 2005, p. 20-25. 17 Painting by or after Robert Braithwaite Martineau at the Art UK site

The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. It has a unique …

Image: Burlington House

A 19th century illustration of the Royal Academy

Satirical drawing of Sir William Chambers, one of the founders, trying to slay the 8-headed hydra of the Incorporated Society of Artists

Study for Henry Singleton's painting The Royal Academicians assembled in their council chamber to adjudge the Medals to the successful students in Painting, Sculpture, Architecture and Drawing, which hangs in the Royal Academy. Ca. 1793.